Patch 4.2 will be deployed to the TTS on Thursday, January 11th. As with most Mid-Season Reinforcements, we have a collection of Operator changes that are coming, particularly for a couple of fan favorites (or nemeses).

Deployment on the live servers will come after we have had a chance to review the feedback from the TTS.

BALANCE CHANGES

Ela’s SMG will have a reduced magazine size

We have decided to lower the magazine size of her SMG from 50 to 40 bullets.

Game Designer notes: Ela overpowers her competition. Players select her almost every round, and for a good reason. All of the data we have on her (such as win ratio, K/D ratio, and Kills per round) shows that she needs to be nerfed. We have found this to be primarily because of her SMG and to a lesser extent her concussion mines.

The recoil of her SMG was already nerfed slightly with Y2S3.2, but this did not have the impact that we hoped.

For now, we’re trying to balance her while keeping her SMG’s uniqueness, which lets her fight several opponents at a time better than other defenders. We will consider other ways of nerfing this weapon if this is not enough.

In addition to the reduced magazine size, we will be reducing the overall strength of concussion effects across the board.

Reduction in Concussion effects

With Y2S4.2 patch, concussion effects will no longer disable sprinting. It will still reduce movement speed and camera rotation speed, but affected targets will recuperate much faster (4 sec, instead of 7 sec). The effect on sight and hearing will still last a total of 7 sec.

Game Designer notes: This change will affect both Ela and Zofia. We believe this will most heavily impact Ela, as Zofia also has impact grenades to rely on for increased effectiveness.

Compared to other gadgets of this nature, the concussion effect is superior in almost every way: it greatly affects movement speed, massively slows down rotation speed, and also reduces a player’s ability to hear and see.

Ash’s R4-C nerf

We reduced the damage of the R4-C to 39 (from 41).

Game Designer notes: Ash is still a pick that is too attractive when compared to other attackers. We’ve compared her most popular weapon (R4-C) to other assault rifles stats and given the R4-C’s very high rate of fire (860), its damage is a bit too high.

Capitao’s Para-308 buff

We increased the Para-308’s raw damage is to 48 (from 43). We also slightly reduced the intensity of the random components of its recoil.

Game Designer notes: Capitao right now is not attractive enough. His gadget suffers from a few issues that will need long-term solutions, but in the meantime, it’s clear that his main assault rifle is too weak.

Twitch’s Shock Drone Ammo

We reduced the max ammo for each Shock Drone to 5 (from 15).

Game Designer notes: Twitch right now is too strong. There are several possible reasons, one of them being that her drones have the potential to deny an unreasonable amount of electronics from defenders. We feel that this change will force players to start making choices about when to shoot or to save their ammo, and which Defender gadgets to destroy.

Bandit’s barbed wire

Bandit will now have two barbed wire (down from 3).

Game Designer notes: Even if Ela has eclipsed Bandit’s pick rate, players still pick him too often. Reducing the number of barbed wires he has should bring him more in line with other Defenders.

Lesion’s Gu Mine refill timer

We lowered Lesion’s Gu Mine refill timer to 30 sec (from 35).

Game Designer notes: Lesion is in an OK place right now, but could use a slight buff. By reducing the refill timer, it will encourage his specific playstyle of staying alive as long as possible to increase the strength of his defensive gadget.